Scrushy several months ago had asked the judge to lift the sanction because he wanted to form a new company to take advantage of opportunities being opened up by the federal healthcare legislation commonly called Obamacare. Under the terms of the SEC settlement Scrushy could come back and make a request to have the sanction lifted after five years.

"As to defendant Scrushy's fitness to serve as an officer or director of a public corporation, the court needs no oral testimony to determine that defendant Scrushy remains unfit for the same," Johnson writes in her order issued late Tuesday. "While the court has every confidence in Scrushy that he can once again create an empire out of nothing, the court also remains convinced that the temptation of personal enrichment is too much for him to bear, for the reasons set forth herein."

"The court has considered all of the foregoing, all of the evidence submitted in support of and in opposition to defendant Scrushy's motion, and also reviewed and considered the long and tortuous history of this case and other litigation spawned out of the HealthSouth fraud," Johnson also wrote in her order.

HealthSouth and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's contended Scrushy is not fit to take control of another company - claiming among other things that Scrushy has never taken responsibility for a fraud at HealthSouth and that he's currently living a lavish lifestyle despite a $2.8 billion judgment against him.

The 2007 settlement containing the ban stemmed from the SEC's filing of a 2003 civil enforcement lawsuit against HealthSouth and Scrushy for an alleged $2.7 billion fraud for insider trading and accounting fraud.

Scrushy was acquitted in a federal criminal trial related to the alleged $2.7 billion fraud. At a civil trial in Jefferson County Circuit Court in 2009, however, Scrushy was found liable for the accounting fraud and ordered to pay HealthSouth nearly $2.9 billion in damages.

In an unrelated case, in 2006 Scrushy and former Gov. Don Siegelman were convicted of bribery and honest services fraud. Prosecutors alleged Scrushy bought a seat on a hospital regulatory board by arranging $500,000 in donations to Siegelman's 1999 campaign to establish a state lottery.

Scrushy, who was released from prison last year, recently lost the appeal of that conviction to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.